President Jim Tressel’s contract extended through June 2019

The Youngstown State University Board of Trustees and President Jim Tressel have agreed to extend Tressel’s contract for another year through June 30, 2019.

“Since becoming YSU’s chief executive in 2014, the campus has seen great progress in nearly every facet of the university’s operations,” Trustees Chair Len Schiavone said. “We are pleased that President Tressel’s leadership and the university’s momentum will continue.”

Tressel said: “We have accomplished much in a brief period of time, but much work remains. We look forward to advancing the university and the community and, most importantly, continuing to focus on the success of our students.”

Tressel was named YSU’s ninth president in 2014 and signed a three-year contract. A year ago, he signed a new agreement to extend the contract through June 2018. That agreement also calls for three separate additional one-year renewal options that could take the contract through June 2021.

On Thursday, Tressel and the board agreed to the first renewal option to extend the contract another year, through June 30, 2019.

The pact includes no pay increase. His annual salary will remain at $300,000.

Under Tressel’s leadership, YSU’s freshmen enrollment has increased 25 percent. The most recent freshmen class boasts the highest standardized test scores and grade point averages in the university’s history. Residence halls are at capacity. One privately-financed student apartment complex has opened and is at capacity, and a second is now under construction. A new Barnes & Noble student bookstore has also opened on the West Side of campus. The university also approved its first operating budget in five years without a structural deficit. Standard & Poor’s, one of the nation’s top credit-rating agencies, upgraded YSU’s bond rating to A+. The university also created a new Honors College and has raised more than half of the historic $100 million “We See Tomorrow” fundraising campaign, the largest in YSU history.

Prior to being named president at YSU, Tressel spent two years as executive vice president for Student Success at the University of Akron. He previously was head football coach at Ohio State University from 2001 to 2010, where his teams won the national championship in 2002 and seven Big Ten championships and appeared in eight BCS post-season bowl games. He was head football coach at YSU from 1986 to 2000, where his teams won four Division I-AA national championships. He also was executive director of Athletics at YSU from 1994 to 2000. Tressel earned a bachelor’s degree in Education from Baldwin-Wallace College in 1975 and a master’s degree in Education from the University of Akron in 1977. He also received honorary degrees from YSU in 2001 and Baldwin-Wallace in 2003.